GOP State Lawmaker Takes Special Senate Bid
Below the Belt in Shelley Luther Besmirching

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
September 26, 2020

The mud is getting historically deep in the countdown to the special Texas Senate District 30 election with GOP contender Shelley Luther accusing State Rep. Drew Springer's camp of a smear campaign with an attempt to make her appear to be sexually promiscuous.

Luther - a Dallas area beautician who gained fame this spring as a pandemic restrictions protester - posted a photo on Twitter on Friday night that shows a Springer campaign attack piece with a handwritten message on a sticky note at the bottom of the page that says "Who Is She Sleeping With This Month?"

Luther and her boyfriend both asserted in separate tweets last night that Springer's father had put the trashy display up outside the Parker County GOP headquarters in Weatherford. Tim Georgff, who lives with Luther in the Collin County town of Pilot Point, tweeted that the state lawmaker's father had posted the message again after it had been taken down at least once.

The makeshift attempt at character assassination also featured a photograph of Luther and her father at her wedding in Las Vegas in 2014 when she married Barry Luther after getting a divorce with first husband Kenny Porterfield seven years earlier. The Luthers were divorced in June last year according to Denton County records.

The attack appears to be based on a stereotype of an extremely attractive woman who'd been working as a hair stylist at a Dallas salon that she owns when she effectively dared local officials to arrest her for reopening the business illegally in late April when an emergency closure order had in been effect.

Luther spent one night in the Dallas County jail before the Texas Supreme Court ordered her release in a move that prompted Governor Greg Abbott to remove the threat of incarceration as a penalty for breaking the emergency laws that he'd implemented to protect the public health and safety during the pandemic.

Whoever is pushing the caricature may not be aware that the Legislature contains many Republicans who've been divorced and remarried in the past. The Texas Capitol has long been an incubator for juicy gossip about personal indiscretions among lawmakers, lobbyists and staff. Some of the scandalous scuttlebutt is false and some is not.

Luther and Springer have been the frontrunners in the special election that will be held on Tuesday for the Senate seat that Republican Pat Fallon is giving up for a race for Congress this fall. The field includes Republicans Craig Carter of Nacona, Andy Hopper of Decatur and Chris Watts of Denton and Democrat Jacob Minter of Anna.

A limited amount of polling on the special contest suggests that Luther has the best shot at a spot in a runoff with Springer or the lone Democrat in the competition as the second round foe.

The Springer campaign material that became a backdrop for the sexual innuendo note revolves on questions about Luther's history as an employee for several Texas school districts. Luther has resisted Springer calls for her to release the records from a 10-year stint in public education that ended when she entered the business world as an entrepreneur.

Springer knows how it feels for candidates to have their moral fabric impugned. But in Springer's case there had actually been evidence to base a personal attack unlike the Luther rumor-mongering episode.

Springer survived an embarrassing moment in his first race for the House in 2012 after revelations that he'd pleaded guilty to shoplifting as a college student at the University of North Texas in Denton in his early 20s. Springer contended that his arrest had been the product of a fraternity prank gone awry.